I know, I SUCK at updating this thing. I’ll get back to it, hopefully sooner than later. And I thought blooging horror and halloween would be inspirational.
However, for my three readers, if they ever decide to come back, found this in one of my feeds and had to share.
Is it scary that I knew most of these as wrong??
For centuries people have frightened themselves, friends, family or children with the legends and lore of things that bump in the night. From ghosts and ghouls, goblins and spooks, monsters that lurk under your bed or even hide in the tool shed; the undead or the dead. Given enough imagination anything can be made real even if only for a short period of time.
Whether your favorite is brains or blood, there’s certainly enough to keep horrorists happy in October. Though, for today we have a focus. That of the vampire, or more specifically Dracula.
Where as multitudes would proclaim the bastardized version of Count Dracula as a horror timepiece, those who have delved into the original Bram Stoker novel would find that beneath the bloodsucker and his minions lies the heart of a true love story.
Sure, Drac bites people and feeds off them, turns them into his brides, Renfields others, and of course turns others completely into vampires to wreck havoc as he does on the mortal world. He is a vampire after all and that is what vampires do in the end. The father of vampire lore though, Dracula himself, loved once. Loved so deeply and so eternally that when he found her spirit reborn he moved heaven and hell to regain her love. Find me a modern day man who would do that…
What cracks me up is that Dracula dies at the end. Usually, when the story is told right, he’s killed by the hand of his beloved because he can’t condemn her to the life he’s lead since her original death. So where has all this “Son of Dracula” stuff cropped up? If Stoker wrote a second book about Dracula I’d personally love to read it. I’d especially like to know where the concept of Dhampir came from.
The mythos of Dracula has been beautifully bastardized as the centuries have rolled by. People have created whole new vampire legends that stem from bits and pieces of original prose. Can’t walk in daylight, crosses won’t affect them, only wood will do anything, wood only paralyzes, holy water doesn’t hurt, can/can’t have sex. At least it makes for good fodder for stories down the line and opens the doors for new ones as well.
I can prattle on for ages about vampires, gods only know they fascinated me long enough and there really are some good ones out there. Lestat de Lioncourt among them (though I recommend you STOP reading at book 5). I mean, come on I think I’ve even seen mention of them in J.K Rowlings work (though I’m probably wrong on that point, been a bit since I read the series).
So there you have it, vampires in a Dracula shaped nutshell. Who’s your favorite bloodsucker?
(And sorry for the delay, was having some serious technical difficulties in the last week.)
The year is 2019. Television is now ruling people’s lives. The most popular “audience participation” game show is “The Running Man” – where convicts can win pardons instead of “parting gifts” by defeating murderous henchmen known as “stalkers.” The stalkers haven’t had much of a challenge lately…until Ben Richards comes along.
Ok, confession, when this film came out in 1987 it scared the holy hell out of me. Well, let’s face it, I was nine, dog farts could have scared me. There are pieces in this film that for me, definitely qualify as horror, even if it doesn’t fit some people’s definition; at least IMDB has it under the thriller category.
The Running Man, based off the novella of the same name by Richard Bachman, takes convicts and drops them into game grid where either they defeat the stalkers coming after them or they die. Even without the stalkers popping out of no where and the cooked corpses in the locker room, this film creates an atmosphere for tension. The score weaves itself beneath the cinematography to heighten the game show race of our lives element.
Perhaps one of the better roles with Schwarzenegger, his one liners are kept to a minimum and a good portion of the film is Conan like fighting, meaning he grunts and throws things or shoots people. Perfect for the Govenator (don’t get me wrong, I actually do like him). Thankfully he’s got people to bail him out in this one, Yaphet Kotto and Richard Dawson specifically.
However, as well as this film has held up in the past twenty years, it holds a new terror that it didn’t have in 1987. Films like this and Escape from New York have a whole new fear to them, they are becoming increasingly likely to happen in real life. Cameras everywhere, the prison system over crowded and failing, a lack of traditional morality among the human race, there’s so much to point at the possibility of executing convicts via live television and while comedians may joke about rating going through the roof, sometimes I wonder if its such a joke anymore.
If you’ve seen it before, give it a watch with that thought in mind. If you haven’t, give it a watch just to enjoy it. It’s a great way to waste some time. One thing’s for certain, what rated an R in ’87 probably wouldn’t rate one today.
I give it:
Begin with Lucius Malfoy, the type of bad guy who makes villain look damned fine; from the pages of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels to the life that was brought to him on the silver screen with the acting of Jason Issacs. The man is elegantly slimy with enough loathing of anyone not of pure wizarding blood to make them want to keep checking over their shoulders when he walks by for a wayward curse… or are they checking out his ass.. hard to tell when you have evil as good looking as this.
To Arthur Weasley: “Dear me, what’s the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don’t even pay you well for it?”
Hannibal Lecter is a rare kind of evil. He’s generous and polite to a fault; one would almost think to call him nice. His dislike of rudeness is well known from the episodes of having fellow inmate Miggs eat his tongue to serving Paul Krendler his own brain. Hannibal brought new meaning to the idea of horror, by being one of the most realistic types in the world. Unlike many villains people can relate to Lecter because he could so very easily be our next door neighbor and we would never know. The good doctor you never expect until he’s seasoning your toes for a nice cookout.
“A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.” – Silence of the Lambs
Christine isn’t a bad guy as the saying goes. Not only is she not a guy, she’s not human. She is a 1958 Plymouth Fury. This movie still gives me nightmares. Christine is the ultimate in villans, the type of personality that falls in love with the charm of a youthful man and then does everything she can to make him happy, in this case that also includes killing anyone who antagonizes him. Jealousy drives her to attempt the death of her beloved’s human love interest as well. And heaven forbid you attempt to demolish her, nothing is stopping Christine.
Arnie Cunningham: Whoa, whoa. You better watch what you say about my car. She’s real sensitive.
To quote Bart Simpson “Can’t sleep, clown will eat me.” Which is just what Pennywise will do. Ugh I hate clowns, hate hate hate clowns and this one scares the living hell out of me, but I can’t get enough of him. Pennywise was the best villain Stephen King had written about since he wrote Christine. To see this evil, vile clown brought to life on screen by Tim Curry, the whole thing just gives me chills, especially when he laughs. Commentary on the DVD states that Curry so embodied Pennywise that he was too real and most of the cast would avoid him. Not a movie I would recommend to those afraid of clowns, though, I rather like the fearful shivers of horror it gives me.
“Let go. Be afraid. You all taste so much better when you’re afraid.”
And we’ll round out the vile villains of screen with another by the delectable Tim Curry, which, if you’ve read through any of this before you know I adore him. Going back to my original kick start of Time Well Wasted you know I’m a fan of Legend and you know my favorite villain of all time is Darkness. Again, the man makes Satan sexy. But Darkness is the epitome of evil, in a vile twisted and delicious sort of way. He makes no excuses for what he’s doing and takes great pleasure in the slaying of unicorns to plummet the world into eternal night to give himself the ability to walk above ground.
“There is only one lure for such disgusting goodness. One bait that never fails: innocence.”
I’ll let you decide if the ones I posted are horror or not and encourage you to share your favorites as well.
Day late, dollar short…. Could have sworn today was the first. Sorry for the delay.
Lets begin by exploring the term horror.
According to Answers.com horror is:
We’ll be throwing that last definition out for the month and focus on the part that came from the latin horror from horrēre, meaning to tremble.
Therefore, we’re focusing on what makes us tremble. With sidetracking to just plain old fashion Halloween fun thrown in.
Let’s get it started with some good old fashion movie horror. Or in this case, the brilliant bad guys that make me tremble.
